Back in 1972, when I was a 10-year-old technology and news geek in Chicagoland, a particular story grabbed my attention. Someone had planted time bombs in safe deposit boxes across the country. Their timing systems could be set up to seven months in advance — an impressive feat in 1971 — using common wireless electric …

That Edward Snowden has put the whole political, corporate, and governing class in a bind. With his revelations that a heretofore obscure agency has long been collecting all data on our digital lives, Snowden very plainly blew up the whole perception that government is somehow of, by, and for the people. The picture he paints …

Mohandas Gandhi, the greatest pacifist of the 20th century, is widely quoted as having said, “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look back upon the Act depriving the whole nation of arms as the blackest.” Some have struggled to reconcile his pacifism with an opposition to disarmament. But there …

Like it or not, the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, for short — is coming. Enrollment in state exchanges, online marketplaces for purchasing health coverage or applying for government-run programs, opens Oct. 1. Between now and then, governments across the land will blow millions of dollars in public relations campaigns to reach target audiences and …

Is there anything that we can do to stop the government’s data mining of our email, phone calls, and other digital habits? I moderated an entire panel on this subject during FreedomFest in Las Vegas last week. The room was packed from front to back, standing room only. Clearly, there is a great deal of …

Struggling savers, of which there are plenty here at FreedomFest, have been getting plenty of investment wisdom during this year’s largest gathering of free minds. However, there is no consensus as to what a person is to do.

If the Spy Briefing Club is about anything, it’s about the freedom of thought. Most of us take the freedom to think what we want for granted. We shouldn’t. The thinking reader should study the history of thought to fully appreciate our freedoms and be on the lookout for those who wish to take them …

The first round of negotiations over a new trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union is scheduled to start this week, but it may be doomed before it even begins. EU officials are demanding answers and threatening to call off the negotiations in light of the latest NSA revelations released last week showing …

I was daydreaming over the weekend. The subject: notable intellectual epiphanies I’ve experienced in the course of my life. These are moments when someone reveals something to you that shakes you up. It runs contrary to everything you ever thought possible. You resist it at first, but can’t come up with a proof to the …

The race issue in America never seems to go away. We were reminded again last week when celebrity Southern chef Paula Deen was raked over the coals for using a racial epithet sometime in her past. Her tearful plea for those of us without sin to “cast the first stone” may have resonated with average …

Hanging out in Rome, surrounded by ruins of all ages, you can’t help but have big thoughts about the state of the world. Here are a few of mine. No generation during the long fall of the Roman Empire was really aware of it. Each generation accepted the conditions they inherited and worked to survive …

My passport is festooned with patriotic blather about freedom and democracy. It didn’t used to be this way. The less freedom we have, the more government has to convince us that it exists. But none of it rings true anymore. One page of the passport quotes Lincoln: “that government of the people, by the people, …

When volatility prevails in the gold market, I love seeing so many different opinions because it promotes critical thinking and healthy markets. But because gold is unlike any other commodity, many perspectives can be extreme, such as “goldenfreudes” who take pleasure in gold bugs’ pain. I continue to persuade readers to take a balanced and …

Years ago, it was virtually unheard-of for someone to give up his/her U.S. citizenship. Then, one by one, a handful of famous cases surfaced… like Sir John Templeton, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1964 and moved to the Bahamas. At the time, Templeton was able to save $100 million that he would have otherwise …

A new meme is spreading in financial markets: The Fed is about to turn off the monetary spigot. U.S. Printmaster General Ben Bernanke announced that he might start reducing the monthly debt monetization program called “quantitative easing” (QE) as early as autumn 2013, and maybe stop it entirely by the middle of next year. He …

Many opponents of gun control support the war on drugs, and many critics and reformers of America’s drug laws tend to believe in gun control. Conservatives tend to fall into the first category and liberals into the second. In reality, these two issues are more similar than many people might think. In both cases — …

Dear rest of the world: Please know that it is painful for Americans to see what is happening in the case of Edward Snowden. Here he is flying from Hong Kong to Russia — countries that seem like safe havens from the long reach of the U.S. empire. Where will he end up? Could be …

By the end of the week, 1,700 liberty lovers are expected to stop in at Roger’s Campground in Lancaster, N.H., to see what the Free States Project’s PorcFest is all about. The crowd is openly carrying side arms, rifles, and other weapons, while engaging in all sorts of commerce: accepting dollars, silver, and Bitcoins (leave …

The collective fondness for presidents grows after they leave office for a simple reason. The next occupant of the office is always worse. For instance, George W. Bush’s approval rating is now 49% versus 46% who view him negatively. Absence has certainly made some hearts grow fonder from the post-Katrina, 2008 Wall Street bailout days. …

Where things stood at the close of last week: Dow down 105, gold up $9 an ounce. Nothing worthy of comment, in other words. Those who think the world is warming up should visit Edinburgh. It is a city made of stone. Yellow stone. Brown stone. Almost-black stone. Almost every building is built of stone. …

Perhaps the question is no longer if Obamacare will wreak havoc on the American economy. Instead, the query seems to have morphed into something far more dire and prophetic: Just how much chaos will the law inflict upon the American people, businesses, and the economy? Many wonder, too, if the law will actually improve the …

When NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden wanted to talk to reporter Glenn Greenwald, he insisted that they use encrypted chat. Unfortunately, Greenwald didn’t know how to go about setting that up. In fact, he needed a tutorial in how to do it. Indeed, many people do. I was looking at the download figures of various encryption …

I was in Paris one time, in a park near the Louvre museum, enjoying a lazy summer day. I wasn’t the only one with such a great idea. There were probably a few hundred others enjoying the sunshine — children playing soccer, kissing lovers entwined on the grass, businessmen on a lunch break… You can …

In this age of Obamacare, the writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring some doctors to push back. A small, but growing group of doctors want their patients to pay cash. That’s right, cash. Their own cash. Well, OK, they’ll accept credit cards and debit cards. To get the service requires membership in a practice called …